Phrygia: Turkey’s inland classic

Everyone makes for the beaches, but they’re missing a trick. We flee the coast and escape inland to ancient Phrygia

I was lost deep in Turkey, beyond the tourists, beyond the road signs and
beyond, it seemed, even the Turks, when a whole family of them rode to my
rescue.

Their horse-drawn cart clattered through the weird volcanic stonescape, with
its weather-sculpted “fairy chimneys”, to pull up with a haul on the reins
opposite the wound-down window of my hire car.

No sooner had I mentioned that I was after the Castle of Avdalaz — a line
worthy, even in my terrible Turkish, of Tintin — than the cart had turned
around and was leading me back in the direction it had just appeared from.

Minutes later, this escort of shawled women, tousled children and moustachioed
men had delivered me down a deterio­rating track to my elusive destination.
I watched them disappear in a dust ball of friendly, waving arms before
exploring the 100ft-high crag of hewn-out chambers and cisterns, staircases,
belvederes